


On Babies and Mistakes

by lizandletdie



Series: The Adoption!verse [23]
Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: Baby Fic, adoption!verse, fluffy fluffy fluff, terminal cuteness
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-25
Updated: 2014-11-25
Packaged: 2018-02-26 23:27:31
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,793
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2670338
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lizandletdie/pseuds/lizandletdie
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Belle, Arthur, and Katie gather to wait for the birth of baby Henry.</p>
            </blockquote>





	On Babies and Mistakes

**Author's Note:**

> Okay well I can't find my prompt list for this 'verse, but someone asked to see Katie's reaction to Henry's birth, somebody wanted to see more of David's reaction to Emma's pregnancy, and somebody ELSE wanted Gold to hold his grandson the first time complete with nose boops.
> 
> I hate that I have to do this, but apparently I do. If you're reading this fic anywhere besides AO3, it was posted without my consent and likely profited someone else. Please consider [donating](https://www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr?cmd=_donations&business=CZNGXGNP4PRX4&lc=US&item_name=The%20Mantis%20Fund&currency_code=USD&bn=PP%2dDonationsBF%3abtn_donate_SM%2egif%3aNonHosted) or swinging by my Tumblr (standbyyourmantis) to let me know what you thought!

 Hospitals were boring. Katie just wanted to go home but Mommy and Daddy were really distracted and Bae was in the room with Emma right now and nobody would listen to her. Uncle David and Aunt Mary Margaret were there, too, but they were mostly in the room with Emma (and they weren't _really_ her aunt and uncle, she just called them that because she'd known them since she was a baby). It was Katie and Mommy and Daddy in the waiting room and she was bored with coloring, but nobody would take her home. She was laying across her daddy's lap and whining but neither one of them would pay her attention.

“Daddy, can we go home?” she said again.

Daddy was more likely to do what she wanted than Mommy, and anyway Mommy was sometimes in the room with Emma so she had stuff to do.

“Not yet, sweetheart,” he said, pulling her up so she was sitting in his lap. “The baby hasn't come yet.”

Everyone kept saying that. _The baby is coming_. Katie wasn't really sure what that meant, or why she had to be at the hospital for it. It wasn't her baby. Couldn't the baby come _without_ Katie being there?

She'd asked Mommy about that, but Mommy had just said they were there for Bae but Bae wasn't here. He was in the room with Emma still. What was going on in that room anyway?

“Where is the baby coming from?” she asked. Daddy looked at Mommy and Mommy looked at Daddy.

“The baby is inside Emma, sweetie,” Mommy said finally. “Remember we talked about that?”

Mommy and Katie had had a talk about the baby. Mommy said that babies grew inside moms and that dads put them there, but Katie still wasn't sure how that happened exactly or how Bae got a baby in Emma. This was all really confusing.

“Yeah but how does it get out?” she asked. Then, she thought of something else. “Does it come out of her bottom?”

“No, honey,” Mommy said, sighing and looking at Daddy. “Boys and girls have different...parts. Girls like you and me and Emma have what's called a vulva. Boys, like Daddy and Bae, have a penis. Inside girls' tummies are eggs, and boys have special seeds that their penis can put into the woman. It takes an egg and a seed to make a baby, and then the baby comes back out through the girl's vulva.”

Katie thought about this for a minute. It was weird thinking about babies like this, especially thinking about how she could have one.

“Where are vulvas?” she finally asked.

“I think I need more coffee,” Daddy interrupted, picking Katie up and putting her on Mommy's lap before he walked out of the room.

“Your vulva is your private parts,” Mommy explained. “And a boy's penis is in the same place on him.”

“Oh,” Katie looked down, thinking hard about this new information.

Then Uncle David came in.

“Uncle David,” Katie said, looking to see if she could notice anything that looked different between his private parts and Mommy's underneath their clothes. “Mommy says you have a penis and she has a vulva.”

Uncle David froze and just looked over at Mommy with a weird look on his face.

“We've been talking about where babies come from,” Mommy said quickly. She was blushing but Uncle David looked too tired to really say anything. Instead, he nodded and sat down across from them in the little waiting room.

“Emma kicked me out of the room again,” he said. “Apparently I'm stressing her out.”

“She'll be okay,” Mommy replied. “It's not any easier for her than it is for you.”

“I think she just didn't want me to see her...areas,” he said. Now he was blushing, too.

“Is she pushing?” Mommy said excitedly.

“Just about,” Uncle David said to her. “Do you want to take my place? She might be more okay with you than me right now.”

Mommy was really nervous, now. Her arms were tightening around Katie and she was sitting up straight in her chair. Luckily, Daddy walked in holding his new coffee.

“Emma's about to start pushing,” Mommy said to him before he could even sit. “Do you mind if I see if Emma wants me there?”

Daddy got a weird look on his face and shook his head, which made Mommy move Katie off her lap and stand up to rush out of the room. Now Katie was alone with Uncle David and Daddy and she was _still_ out of coloring books.

“Daddy?” she asked.

“Yes, princess?”

“What's a penis look like?”

Daddy made a weird noise, but Uncle David just laughed.

Grown-ups were so weird.

 

Nothing really prepares you for a first grandchild – especially when your children were in the eleventh and second grades. Arthur had limited experience with waiting on a child to be born, and with Katie he'd been in the room trying very hard not to have a panic attack that would force the nurses to divert attention from his wife and child. Being in the waiting room while his son's girlfriend was in labor was a completely different animal altogether.

Belle had taken David Nolan's place in the delivery room while David sat morosely in a chair against the opposite wall and worried. He didn't really envy David, whose daughter had been vacillating between wanting him in the delivery room and needing him gone (before finally settling on 'gone'). He couldn't imagine being forced to watch Katie suffer through childbirth, especially at sixteen. It had been hard enough with his wife.

The fact that David had been pale and visibly shaking the last time he'd come into the room before Belle subbed in led Arthur to think this would probably be the last time one way or the other. Belle may be a better addition, anyway. There were some things he thought girls probably didn't want their fathers to see. Unfortunately, that didn't necessarily make it any easier on the father to accept.

Poor David was watching Katie as she watched cartoons on Arthur's phone (a concession granted after her talk with her mother left her asking questions Arthur didn't really want to answer in a hospital waiting room with an audience) with an incredibly intense look on his face that would have had Arthur calling the cops had he not known the situation.

“Emma's a fighter,” David said finally. “She always has been.”

“I remember,” Arthur assured him. “She's a tough girl, never let anything stop her.”

David had barely stopped reassuring the general public about how Emma could handle anything since learning of her pregnancy. It was a little heartbreaking, really. Arthur understood the impulse – he was more worried about baby Henry's birth than he had been about Katie's – but at this point, David was just torturing himself.

“Did you ever think this would happen?” David said in a voice just slightly above a whisper. “The kids having a baby so young, I mean.”

Arthur shrugged.

“Honestly, no,” he replied. “But maybe we should have. They were given a lot of freedom because of what good kids they were.”

David nodded in agreement.

“It just...they were children together,” David explained. “They met when they were Katie's age. I never really moved them out of 'playmates' in my head I guess. And he was always such a calming influence on her that I just assumed she'd be better off with him around.”

“Mistakes were made all around,” Arthur conceded. “I trusted him to come to me about this kind of thing. And honestly I think you do worry less when it's your _son._ Now I wish I'd worried more.”

“Are you worried about this one?” David said with a nod towards Katie.

“I've been worried about her since the day Belle told me she was pregnant.”

“Yeah?”

“I hadn't exactly expected to be a father again,” Arthur explained with a shrug. “Once I knew it was happening...it was too big a thing not to worry. Then she showed up and...well, you know.”

David nodded in agreement.

Before either man could make a move to continue the conversation, though, a nurse appeared in the room.

“The baby's here,” she said in a very professional tone. “We're cleaning them both up now, but you can come in if you like.”

David was up and in the hallway while Arthur was still trying to gather Katie together, but by the time he reached the hospital room with his daughter by his side he decided that baby Henry had been worth the wait.

Emma was resting propped up on some pillows while everyone else was completely focused on the tiny person she held in her arms. Arthur picked Katie up and carried her over to get their first glimpse of the newborn. He was a little ball of pink anger wrapped in a blue blanket, and he was beautiful.

Belle leaned against him slightly as they just watched their son as he stared in complete awe at the baby Emma was holding.

“I can't believe you did that,” Bae whispered to Emma so softly that Arthur almost didn't hear it. “I can't believe that's our kid.”

“Me either,” Emma replied.

“Can I hold him?” Bae said at last.

Emma seemed a little nervous, but after a second she nodded, gingerly placing the baby in Bae's arms. Arthur recognized the dumbstruck look on his son's face – Bae had fallen in love with his son and it was the most beautiful thing that Arthur had ever had a chance to witness. He had missed so much of Bae's life, he was grateful at least to share this.

After a few minutes, Henry was passed around from grandparent to grandparent. Arthur was the last in line, setting Katie on the floor before Belle finally placed the baby in his arms.

Henry had a few strands of his father's dark hair on his little cone-shaped head, and seemed to be feeling extremely curious about who all these new people were.

“Hello, Henry,” Arthur cooed to the baby, letting the boy grab his finger in his tiny hands. “I'm your grandpa, and I think you and I are going to be the very best of friends.”

Henry seemed to agree, releasing Arthur's finger and stretching his arms out in front of him, a tiny hand smacking Arthur across the nose.

How could he have ever thought his son had made a mistake now that he held this tiny little person in his arms? He didn't delude himself into thinking this would be easy for anyone, but no child was ever a mistake – Henry least of all.


End file.
